Why are things always in the last place you look?

Often during threads I come across items being discussed where I have already devoted time energy and research in another thread to the point at hand. In some cases I would like to access that information in order to add some or all of it to the point being discussed in the current thread.

Unfortunately, it is sometimes difficult to locate that material using the search engine. Often times the searched for material will be in a thread started by someone else and often the title of the thread will not really indicate the material that came up in the course of the discussion.

I know that every post we make has a unique numerical identifier. Would it be possible for us to have a list of those numbers included on our profile page for research purposes, or at least one numerical identifier for every thread we have posted in?

It would make researching former posts much easier. Personally, I think some of my most useful material has been posted in other people's threads and I am starting to lose track of it.

[edit on 25-6-2009 by ipsedixit]

Are you looking for this, melord?

I've seen other members posting links to their previous posts, referencing to avoid having to explain a lot in one post. I really appreciate those posts, especially because I think it's a tough job to keep up (although it gets easier as you reference to the same posts more often and get an idea of your groundwork, in a sense). Props to you!

edit to add: also check this thread about older posts not showing up in the list linked to above.

[edit on 25-6-2009 by scraze]

reply to post by scraze

Thanks for the links.

I was aware of the first link to the list of the last 250 posts, but that is not really what I am after. I would like to see a list of all threads we have posted to, whether started by oneself or someone else.

In the list of the last 250 posts, there are multiple links to multiple posts in the same thread which, though useful, is not as useful as a way to retrieve posts from any thread one may have posted to.

Edit to add: Just checked out the second google link you suggested and found it very interesting. It is certainly worth trying as an alternative to a comprehensive list supplied by ATS itself.

Thanks again.


[edit on 25-6-2009 by ipsedixit]

Whoops, I see now.. hope I didn't offend you with the simplicity of my reply

Seems like a good thing to have, maybe we could even have a structured menu - when you click on a thread, it shows a list of your posts - when you click on it, it takes you to your post within the thread (as in when you add #pid01234567 to a thread page url). That certainly would make it easy to look stuff up..

Till now the best thing we have is Google, I guess. Here's a search that shows threads.. Google recognises the structure, so at least there's one tool.Hope it helps

reply to post by scraze


Thanks for the info. I did conduct a google search using my name in the way that you indicated. I have it bookmarked now. There are still lots of things I have to learn about using the internet.

Incidentally, no offense taken. I probably should have used italics instead of bold to emphasize the words in my earlier post. I wasn't upset.

[edit on 25-6-2009 by ipsedixit]

reply to post by ipsedixit




[edit on 25-6-2009 by king9072]

Answering your question (Why are things always in the last place you look?), it's because we stop looking when we find them.

What I have done is: I went to the Manage Thread Subscriptions page, selected the whole list, and I copied it to Excel.

Then I deleted some of the older threads from my subscription list (the list is not ordered in any way that I could understand) and copied the new threads that appeared on the list to Excel, and so on until I had all my subscriptions on an Excel sheet.

It solves my problem of finding the threads I am thinking about, but it will not solve the problem of finding the posts, although once in the thread you can click the "thread" button bellow one of your posts and see all the posts in the thread.

If want to have a full database of your posts you can copy them to your computer that way, but I think that would be too much trouble to update that information every time you posted something new on an old thread.

reply to post by ArMaP

Thanks for the info, particularly your opening statement. (lol) Having finally found the answer to that question, I can now take the rest of my life off.

I notice you are located in Portugal. It would be interesting to hear your reactions to the whole Madeleine McCann incident, from the perspective of someone living in Portugal. I am still studying that case. It's quite baffling, particularly the findings of the sniffer dogs.

Were you in Portugal while that was going on? (Onward from May 3, 07.) If you have the time, I would really like to hear your take on the matter from a Portugese perspective in a U2U.